


Expectation in an Envelope

by frogy



Category: Peter Darling - Austin Chant
Genre: Angst, Family, Gen, Hunting, Injury, M/M, Sadness, World War I
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 14:09:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13032804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogy/pseuds/frogy
Summary: War is the worst.Also, family is the worst.





	Expectation in an Envelope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



“There’s a war out there,” Peter had said.

James knew. It’s one of the few things he knew. It had been so long since James had been in the world. But Samuel. “Boer.”

James was expecting a story of epic adventure, a flight of Pan. “No,” said Peter gravely.“On the continent. Bigger than that. It’s everyone, the whole world. They’re calling it the Great War.”

“War isn’t great.” People die in wars out there. The sun had gone down for the night. Or was it because Peter hadn’t been smiling anymore?

“The newspaper said there are already millions dead. More than that now. People dead while I was here playing at war,” Peter had said.

“I want to fight,” Peter had said and that James could believe. Peter seemed to contain at times all the violence of a storm at sea battering at his hull from the inside out. The thick wood of a ship is never as fragile as when waves beat against it. It never feels as sturdy as when you are still alive he next morning.

“I don’t,” said James. He can do everything one-handed, never knew any different, but not that. He’s not sad to be disqualified. “I couldn’t.”

“I can’t,” Peter said. “But John can.”

“Who’s John?” James asked. James doesn’t have anyone waiting for him out there. He didn’t think Peter did either. But he barely knows Peter. Oh, he knows Peter’s force of will, and mercurial nature, quick to anger and cruelty swinging just as quickly to mirth and joy. His tousled curls and bright eyes and smile that will soon only metaphorically bring out the sun. That doesn’t tell James where Peter grew up, or went to school, or what his favorite sweet is. It doesn’t tell James who John is.

“My brother,” said Peter.

“I thought—” your family doesn’t love you. The words die on James’ tongue. He remembered what Peter said in too great a detail, shining moments of truth in the already blurring dream that was Neverland. Maybe watercolors to capture the soft haze of all those years by himself, Peter alone in stark impasto in oils. Peter said his family doesn’t love him. He never said anything about the other way around. For lack of anything better to say, James said “I’m sorry.

“I’m leaving for you,” Peter jumps topics like he’s flying.

“For us,” James says. The distinction is important.

Peter shrugs. “I left for him before. Him and Michael.”

“Brothers?” James guesses.

Peter shrugs again. Instead of answering, he says “don’t make me regret it.”

———

James tries.

They don’t go into the village a lot. 

Peter was right. There was a war. A big one, that only gets worse every time James picks up a newspaper when he can’t put off going into town to pick up some supply or another any longer. 

Peter tries never to come with James. They don’t talk about it.

People look at them. It’s obvious why James can’t fight, even if he hadn’t been creeping toward the age of ineligibility during his long years in Neverland. 

There’s nothing obviously wrong with Peter. And Peter shrinks under the close scrutiny of the small-town eyes. James wants to come up with a lie that will put them off, but Peter is the storyteller between them. And no one would be so uncouth as to ask. They just stare when they’re there, and gossip when they’re gone.

Peter hates shopping. There’s clothing to be had in town, even with rationing. But Peter is reluctant to visit the tailor’s shop, instead traipsing around their forest in James’ too big cast-offs. Peter is the better seamstress between the two of them but nothing makes him so murderous as a rainy day and a pile of mending.

It’s better when the sun is out. They trap rabbits in the woods, and Peter butchers them for stew. There are fish in the stream which go all flakey after Peter guts and grills them. It turns out neither of them know how to shoot a gun, so the deer they sometimes catch sight of grazing at the edge of the tree are saved from becoming venison.

Peter throws apples down from the tree for James. No amount of goading on Peter’s part will convince James to climb up after him.

Telling James that he broke his arm falling out of a tree as a boy doesn’t help Peter’s efforts. It just makes James worried for Peter. He’s certainly bigger now than he was then, more likely for the tree to refuse to hold him in the air. There’s no fairy dust here. James grows to know Peter in stories like this.

Then Peter scrambles down from the tree, flushed and glowing, crowing from besting James at something. And James can’t have that, drops his pile of apples, uses his size advantage to push Peter back against their tree, kisses him. Maybe there is some magic here.

James paints and Peter writes. Peter sells a serial to _Boy’s Own_ , and James illustrates the adventures of a good British boy hunting pirates in a rapidly retreating past.

And then the paper declares “ **GREAT WAR OVER**.”

———

“You can write, you know?” James says.

Peter rips the latest attempt out of his typewriter, violently crumpling it into a ball to join it’s brethren in a pile on the floor. That’s questionable at the moment. Peter glares at him.

“A letter,” James says. “You can write a letter.”

Peter has been out of sorts since they returned from Bristol. James had a gallery show. He had been ready with a show’s worth of naval scenes and portraits, when the curator was looking for an exhibit full of British military triumph. His conflicted feelings on the matter weren’t enough to turn down the opportunity. Neither had been Peter’s quiet confession “my father has business interests there.”

“They can write a letter. The post goes both ways,” says Peter, surly. Peter picks up and waves around last month’s _Boy’s Own_ that he’s ostensibly working on the next installment of. “They know I’m Peter. I still go by ‘Darling’.”

James isn’t as sure of Peter’s deductions. Maybe Peter doing anything quietly should have been enough to turn down the show. James had not miss taking the brunt of Peter’s misdirected anger. The war is over. Everything is supposed to be great, haven’t you heard? “If you’re just going to destroy paper, go outside. I’m working.”

Peter slams the magazine as hard as paper is capable of slamming, seemingly glad for James giving him a reason to be mad at him. “Fine.” Peter stomps down the stairs.

“And wear your new coat,” James calls.

The coat was James’ shopping triumph, a dark navy wool, double-breast, overcoat, with a wide, notched Beaver-fur collar. It’s definitely showier than anything Peter would choose for himself, but the trip was James’ celebration. Peter couldn’t refuse James the joy of buying Peter the coat. The color of the wool brought out the blue in Peter’s eyes, and the fur color brought out the lowlights in Peter’s golden hair. Thinking about Peter in the coat is more enjoyable that Peter’s presence lately.

And Peter is back, clomping up to their attic workroom studio before James tires of thinking about Peter in the coat.

“What now?”

James would never guess the answer.

Peter had clomped down the stairs, angry at James because he was annoying, because he wouldn’t admit Peter was right. (Peter isn’t right. James knows now isn’t the time to say that.)

Peter put on the stupidly fussy coat, fumbling with all those stupid buttons. It’s totally impractical for adventures in the woods. It’s a slick, city coat. He opened the door, slamming it behind him, set to take off to he’s not even sure where.

There’s someone there.

No one shows up there. It’s just the two of them. They’re not so far from town that they couldn’t have visitors. But when Mrs. Winston showed up with a pudding when they first got back, Peter eyed her with suspicion and barely concealed hostility. No one has shown up uninvited since. And they haven’t extended any invitations.

“Who’s there?” Peter calls, as the man walks falteringly toward the house. That doesn’t help Peter figure out who it is though, the man bundled up like the brisk winter day is a blizzard, scarf wrapped around his face, coat collar flipped up, homburg with an unfashionably large brim tipped down to all but obscure him from existence. 

“Peter?” a confused muffled voice asks. “I was looking for a James? James Harrington?”

“Who are you?” Could it be someone from town? But they would never come here. He doesn’t know anyone. 

“It’s Ernest.”

“Ernest? From Neverland?”

“Only to you. You and Hook, I guess. To everyone else I’m Ernest from Bristol,” he says. Then, like a revelation, “James Harrington is Hook?”

Peter looks at him, trying to recognize the boy from Neverland. How much of Ernest in Neverland is the same as Ernest from Bristol.

James isn’t there to overhear that first conversation. Peter relays it to him later. He says “Ernest is here.” 

James puts away his paints, makes quick work of washing out the brushes, while Peter hovers unnecessarily. James walks downstairs, Peter on his heels.

He looks around. “Where is he?”

“Outside.”

“You left him outside? James doesn’t wait for Peter’s answer. He opens the door. Ernest stands there, back-lit from the sun outside their front door. 

“Hi Ernest, come in. I’m so sorry Peter left you out here. Come in, would you like tea?” The polite words tumble out of his mouth unprompted.

Ernest doesn’t come in come in. James wonders if Ernest is looking for the pirate captain that he knew. James is no pirate here, just a man. And then he does, stepping through the door that James is holding open.

“I’ll take that tea now, thank you,” Ernest says.

“Peter, go make tea.” Peter doesn’t to go make tea. James sighs, turns to go make tea. Peter follows him.

“Did you forget your manners?” James asks Peter in a hissed question when they retreat to the kitchen. 

“I’m not your housewife,” Peter said. 

“What does that have to do with making tea?” James asks.

They return to the foyer with tea. Ernest had taken off his layers while they’re in the kitchen and sits down in the parlor off their entrance way. And James sees why he was bundled up. His face… he’s not sure what happened to it. It’s like the right side of his face was a wax candle left too close to the hearth. His forehead had melted right over where his eye on that side would be.

James is startled, but knows better than to say anything.

Peter doesn’t. “What happened to you?”

“The war.”

“But you didn’t want to fight,” Peter says. Ernest wanted peace with the pirates, wanted all of the friendship and camaraderie and acceptance out of his adventures. He had none of Peter’s un-contained rage.

“We don’t always get that choice.” Isn’t that the truth.

James cuts off that line of questioning. He settles the tea tray on the side table and serves them. “How did you find us? Me?”

“The painting,” Ernest says.

“What painting?” Peter asks. But James knows. It’s one of the ones that sold, not at the opening, but to a later visitor. He painted it not long after they returned, while he was still acclimating to the real world and it’s never-ending wars that only got worse in his absence. He longed for the sudden appearance of a boy who would bring peace. 

“My parents bought it. They asked why I never told them I sat for a portrait and I told them I didn’t. I went to the gallery and asked who painted it, where I could find the painter. Then I asked around in town.”

“I’m sorry,” James says because Ernest doesn’t sound happy about it. In the end Ernest was just another man who couldn’t do anything about it.

Ernest shrugs.

“So they were happy to have you back?” Peter asks.

Ernest’s lips move, but his face is too distorted to read anything in the expression. “I was back at any rate. And then I was gone. To the front. And then back again like this. That certainly put a stop to the talk about settling down with a nice girl. Why would a nice girl want me now?”

They have dinner together. They don’t talk about anyone’s families. Ernest didn’t want to go home. He was going to move to London after the war. He made plans with another soldier he had met. They exchanged letters. Ernest hasn’t written since his injury.

“You should write. I have a typewriter in the attic. You can do it from here.” Peter offers.

“He’s not going to want to hear from me like this,” Ernest says.

“He’ll want to know you’re alive.” James doesn’t want to give Ernest false hope for anything else, but he’s lived through the alternative. 

Peter has no such compunctions. “If he’s worth the worry, he’ll care.”

“I thought about going back to Neverland. I thought maybe I’d be fixed there. I’d show up and have my old face. But I couldn’t bare the thought that I wouldn’t. That maybe I’d be just as disfigured there as I am here. I was never as good at shaping Neverland to my will as you were. And no one can change the shape of things here at all.”

“I’ve done a pretty good job so far,” Peter says and James wonders if Peter is antagonizing Ernest intentionally.

“No, you can’t shape the world to your whim here,” Ernest snaps back, rising to Peter’s bait.

“Of course I can. And so can you. I’m here with James and not stuck with my family in London. I wanted to escape, to find adventures and companionship. And now here I am, traipsing through the woods and climbing trees and writing stories with James.”

“None of that’s magic,” Ernest says.

“It damn sure it,” Peter spits back.

“Did you fight with each other like this in Neverland?” James says carefully benignly, cutting of the escalating rancor. Everyone at the table realizes he’s changing the topic but they take it, and move on to reminiscing about Neverland stories. James still hasn’t found a coat that rivals the spider silk one that he left behind and he’s always happy to lament about it.

“God, you don’t need the stupid coat to be irresistible,” Peter says. Then Peter turns red realizing what he said in front of an audience. Ernest laughs it off. 

Later when Peter is washing the dishes because James cooked, and Ernest offered but was told he’s a guest, James and Ernest decamp back to the living room.

“I’m sorry about Peter,” James apologizes for Peter’s earlier behavior.

“Peter’s a force unto himself. There’s nothing for you to apologize for,” Ernest says.

“The war’s a sore point for him. His two brothers were in it and since he’s not in touch with his family, he doesn’t know their fate.” James explains. It’s probably not his place to say, but he wants Ernest to understand. 

“When did he last see them?”

“Before Neverland the second time,” James says, “when you met him.”

“How do they know Peter’s not dead?” Ernest asks. “Neverland works the same for Peter as the rest of us, right? He just disappeared? Maybe they’re just as worried about him?”

“They’re not,” James says, and finds himself repeating Peter’s logic of the post going both ways instead of getting into the whys of how he knows. “Peter is published in magazines across the country. They could find him if they wanted.” There are some things that James is willing to tell Ernest even when he probably shouldn’t and then there are other secrets he will never betray. 

Peter rejoins them from the kitchen then, and they drop the topic of conversation anyway, the room going quiet.

“Were you talking about me?” Peter says.

“Only bad things,” James says.

———

Ernest is their first houseguest ever. It’s not as awkward and uncomfortable as James would have guessed having a houseguest to be. Then again, Ernest is the only houseguest they could have who they could set up in the guest room, barely habitable for all the drying canvases stacked up in the room, and retreat into the master together.

Ernest leaves without writing a letter to his soldier, no matter how much Peter badgers him. He does get an invitation to come back and visit whenever he wants. Or more likely, whenever he feels up for bickering with Peter again. By the end of the visit, James stopped trying to make peace and just let them fight it out.

It’s unexpectedly quiet with Ernest gone, just the two of them again, quieter than it was before. 

Which is why Peter is outside being disgruntled by life when he meets their second ever guest. 

Their second guest isn’t a guest at all, but a man tracking deer through their woods. Peter’s first instinct was to chase him off, he tells James later. But he was bored, so while the young man stalks the deer, Peter stalks him, moving quietly through the underbrush, watching him go about his business. He gets a whole morning’s entertainment before the man catches him at it when Peter goes to leap over a fallen tree branch and trips. Sometimes Peter really wishes his powers of flight were valid here. 

The man, Willie, Peter learns, helps him up, concerned that Peter hurt himself. The only thing that Peter hurt is his dignity.

So Peter makes a friend in the woods. James is only a little hurt that Peter is willing to go into town. “Can’t go hunting without a riffle,” Peter tells him. “And a knife.” But Peter is happy again.

He comes home with wind burned pink cheeks and bright eyes. James focuses on the unfettered joy in Peter and tries not to dwell on the gruesome tales running his mouth of the recoil of a riffle and the resistance against his knife when opening the chest cavity that James’ mind paints in a wash of red blood. 

When hearing about it gets to be too much, James pushes Peter up against a wall, down on their bed, makes Peter fight for the upper hand.

Peter stops complaining of boredom, even in the days and weeks he’s stuck home due to weather or impending writing deadlines or both. Peter starts a campaign to get a hound, until he realizes he doesn’t need permission, and comes home with a puppy he’s already calling Tink.

Peter is at Willie’s, breaking down a deer they had aging in Willie’s ice shed for the last three days when a letter arrives for Peter. It’s different from the business correspondence that Peter gets for his writing. James can’t tell why, but he knows that this letter is personal, and it’s enough to leave James agitated, pacing the foyer, the front parlor, unable to get settled doing anything else until the letter is resolved. 

He’s watching for it, so James spots Peter heading home, Tink bounding along at his heels, when he’s still firmly on the forest side of the gradual woods-to-lawn transition leading to their house. 

James comes out to meet Peter. Peter’s arms are full of butcher-paper wrapped packages, so he nods at James in acknowledgement when he spots him. James reaches where Peter is and turns around so they continue to the house together. “You got a letter.”

Peter stops short. “From who?”

“I don’t know,” James says. “I didn’t open it. Here it is.” James pulls it from his pocket to offer to Peter. But Peter’s arms are still full, of course.

“Well open it,” Peter says, not willing to wait a second longer than necessary for the answer to the puzzle.

James does, fumbling to break the seal and open the envelope on the go, without the letter opener that compensates so well at home for his one-handedness. The scrolls in Neverland were so much easier to open and he knows that was all his doing.

Peter doesn’t rush James, and James in turn goes right to the most important thing, turning the pages over, eyes skimming to the bottom, looking for a name. “It’s from Ernest.”

“Oh,” Peter says, with just one single let-down exhale, before rallying. “Well, what does he say.”

“Dear Peter,” James reads.

———

_Dear Peter,_

_I hope my letter finds you well. I am writing to you from London._

_There’s a doctor here who is working on soldier’s faces. It’s a new sort of thing. Cousins wrote to my parents about it and as much as they never seemed to care for me as I was, instead of how they wanted me to be, they would still prefer my old face back. So here I am. I see the doctor tomorrow. I can’t decide if I hope I’m a good candidate or not._

_They couldn’t get away to come with me, and I have to say, that candidate or not, I may never go back. I can cover my face and move in anonymity, largely unbothered surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the city. The freedom to come and go as I please, gave me an idea that I hope you will forgive me for._

_Yesterday, with nothing to do but wait two more days for my appointment, I went looking to see if I could find the Darlings. You seemed to think your family would be easy to find. So I set off early to see if I could find them. Perhaps my task would have been easier if I could still smile and set people’s minds at ease. But eventually a (someone) took pity on an injured soldier looking for a friend from the war._

_I arrived a little before supper, and an older woman who identified herself as the housekeeper opened the door. I was not invited in, but the friend from the war worked again, and Michael stepped out for a moment to speak to me. He is fine, whole and hale, as I know is your first concern. John too, although I did not meet him, as he was at work. It seems that he has (gotten a clerking position for one of the someone he served under). There was some confusion, of course, as Michael did not know me from the war, or from anywhere else, and when I identified myself as a friend of his brother he assumed I meant John._

_Michael insisted he did not have another brother._

_He was quite sure there was no Peter Darling that resided at that address, that there must be some other Darlings in London I was confusing them for, even though we both agreed it would be quite the coincidence that some other Peter Darling would also have brothers Michael and John._

_I was all ready to concede to his insistence, surely Michael would know his own brothers, when I said I’m not even sure what, a mutter of frustration under my breath about tilting at windmills, the futility of fighting pirates and following treasure maps, for I am no Peter Pan. And that is when Michaels stopped me, asking if I had seen Wendy._

_Now it was my turn to be confused, for I certainly don’t know a Wendy Darling._

_But Michael explained that it was a game they played as children; he, John, and their older sister Wendy, where they would fight the evil pirate captain Hook, with the help of their fairy companion, Tinkerbell. It sounded like an exciting, imaginative adventure for children to play act at, and of course I know it was the same exciting adventure to live out, but Michael sounded bitter at the childhood game. See, he explained, his sister was kidnapped as a young woman, and they never quite figure out what atrocities she experienced at the hands of her unknown kidnappers, because when she returned her mind had been broken. She insisted she was not Wendy, but Peter, the character from those games._

_Their parents worked hard to reintegrate her into proper society, into the proper young lady they knew she could be, but it never quite took. Wendy disappeared shortly before the war, and none of them had heard from her since._

_I tried to tell him Peter was fine, alive and well and happy, but he did not want to hear me. I asked him to tell John, your parents, those who would want to know, to tell them that you are okay. I am afraid we had hit an impasse there for he was sure they would be happier not knowing you as you now are._

_I take back what I said about magic. You do shape the world to your will. And you deserve more than you will ever get from your family, but for your peace of mind, know that they are okay. And I’ve sent a letter to let my soldier know the same about me. I don’t have your charisma or imagination. I cannot imagine he would want me know, but I always strove to be kind and I cannot imagine letting him think me dead is the kinder option._

_I am sure I know you Peter, here, in this world, in your cabin with James, where you spin tales that entertain, yes, I’ve picked up some of your writings even though I am older than the boys you intend to amuse. And of course, I know you from Neverland where the topography of the land changed to delight you._

_I would offer to be nicer to you on my next visit, to try to pick fewer fights and disagrees less, but you did me the kindness of overcoming my face and treating me like you always did. So will endeavor to antagonize you without even trying, the same as it’s always been between us._

_Sincerely your friend,  
Ernest _________

———

James finishes reading the letter. He folds it carefully equally unsure if Peter will want to treasure the news or watch it burn to ash in the flames of their fireplace. Peter’s face has drained of color, eyes gone glassy and lost. 

James is so intent on trying to read Peter’s expression, that he startles at the thump by their feet. James looks down. Peter dropped his packages, arms falling like all his strings have been cut. Tink is vibrating with the effort it takes not to go for them.

Peter slumps into James, and James’ arms come up to hold Peter on instinct. He cradles Peter’s head into his chest, turns his face into the top of Peter’s golden curls. James wishes he could do something more, but all he can do is hold him. 

James can feel Peter’s hitching, unsteady breaths in the movement of his back under James’ hands. But somehow, it’s still a surprise when Peter pulls a half a step back and there are tear tracks on his face, eyes red and puffy. Peter is crying.

“Why does it still hurt?” 

Peter has never sounded so young. Peter sniffles and wipes at his nose. The cuffs of his coat are already mottled with dirt and viscera. Tink has succumbed to animal instincts, shredding paper and ripping the raw meat apart at their feet. The woods are winter green and grey around them.

James shrugs, not an ‘I don’t know’ but an ‘I can’t help.’ He wants to. “I love you,” James says eventually. He knows it’s inadequate

“I know,” Peter says. “That doesn’t help.”

If only a pinch of fairy dust could heal these wounds. “It’s the only thing I have to offer.”

**Author's Note:**

> There was a lot of googling involved in this story. Even with that, I'm sure there are still some historical inaccuracies. I hope you can overlook them.
> 
> The title is from the quote "Letters are expectation packaged in an envelope." by Shana Alexander, which seemed apropos when googling for quotes about letters to use as a title.
> 
> If you're not squeamish, google can show and tell you a lot more about facial shrapnel injuries during WWI. It turns out that trenches were pretty good at protection bodies and much less good at protecting soldiers heads and faces. The entire field of plastic surgery grew out of it attempting to repair these injuries.
> 
> After that, the information about tracking and hunting and breaking down dear for meat seemed pretty mild. That being said, all of the information I could find was about modern hunting, and I made some assumptions about how it was done before you could put the deer in the back of your truck and drive it to your meat freezer/refrigerator.
> 
> The most pleasant google searches were about Peter's blue coat:
> 
> [](https://imgbb.com/)  
> 
> 
> [](https://ibb.co/cZrgLR)  
> 
> 
> [](https://ibb.co/df13Zm)  
> 
> 
> [](https://imgbb.com/)  
> 


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